1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to occupant safety systems for automotive vehicles, and more specifically to such systems for detecting a side impact and activating occupant restraints in response.
2. Background Art
Known side impact sensing systems use lateral accelerometers and/or air pressure sensors (typically located in a door cavity) to determine when a vehicle is involved in a side impact and to estimate the crash severity level after initial impact. With these sensors, it may take about 10 milliseconds to detect and confirm that the impact event has occurred. In general, it would be advantageous if the detection/confirmation time could be reduced, as this would leave more time for the activation/deployment of restraint systems.